Running in the Lotus Fields
by Hannibal the Animal
Summary: The Triquel to "I'll Send You Home to the Lotus Eaters," Sequel to "In the World of the Lotophagi" Find the Soundtrack on author's profile


Violet's allowed home from the special hospital for small amounts of time. Today is the longest visit yet, six hours. She's sitting on the couch where they have the Saturday cartoons playing quietly while she's humming softly, a sweet smile on her face. Jack-Jack, eleven, is sitting in front of her, allowing her to methodically brush his auburn hair. Helen is so proud of him for being patient with his older sister and thanks her lucky stars that she was blessed with a child so kind.

"Jack-Jack, shall I get you something to drink?" Violet asks with a beaming smile.

"I want a cranberry juice please."

"Of course!" she says and hurries off to the kitchen.

Helen helps her pour the juice into a glass, steadying the girl's shaking hands.

The drugs have affected some of her motor skills ("permanently," the doctors say) and there are few activities she can accomplish on her own. However, as much as this hurts Helen, she's secretly grateful that Violet has to rely on her. It makes her feel useful, like she'll never lose her little girl again.

Violet cheerfully takes the glass back to her youngest brother, serving him the way a servant would. Helen watches Violet who watches her brother with interest. This was the part where he had to give her his approval.

"Thanks, Violet. It's great!" he complements right on cue.

"Oh, I'm so glad!" Violet gushes and hugs him.

Helen smiles from the kitchen. The anger that her daughter used to express so freely has mostly disappeared and was replaced with a warm positive side that had never existed before. It's like she was moulded…or given a lobotomy.

Violet returns to the kitchen, a shadow of unexpected darkness crossing her face.

"My head's hurting," she murmurs and Helen quickly leads her to the dark bedroom that she once resided in.

"Why don't you take a nap?"

"That sounds good," she agrees and allows Helen to lay her down and tuck her into her childhood bed.

Violet instantly falls asleep and Helen sits on the edge of the mattress, watching and protecting. That's what parents do. That's what Supers do. They protect.

And Helen wants nothing more.

* * *

Violet has a hard time making force fields and she simply can't do invisibility anymore. She's no better than a civilian, worse than a civilian because she's so feeble. She hasn't been removed from the list of active Supers, just put on "Hiatus."

Rick Dicker sits in the interrogation room with the Superparents and the Supergirl. Questions have been asked and they need to be answered.

"Can you tell me what happened?" he asked for a fifth time as he pours her more water.

Violet sits in the metal chair, the shake in her hands a light tremor. Large tears well up in her eyes.

"He tried to steer the plane. But there was something wrong. It wouldn't lift."

Bob and Helen are sitting on either side of her, looking at her mournfully.

"I should have made a shield. But I couldn't. I've never made a shield that big before." She looks over at Helen, who's starting to cry too. "I tried. I really tried."

"I know, baby," Helen reassures amid tears.

Dicker tries not to appear too impatient by he REALLY wants a name to place on her flying companion.

"Where were you flying?" he enquires.

"To France. To see the beach. He said he wanted to start over. He said he wanted to love me right." Violet pushes her hair out of her face, coming out from behind the curtain. "He said there were new clothes waiting for me at our hotel, that there would be diamonds and furs."

He watches the girl fidget slightly, touching her father's arm and then kissing her mother's cheek before she continues.

"He said he also had something better that the Lotus, something stronger." Her large violet eyes turn back to them. "He said I deserved it."

"What was _"his"_ name?" Rick finally asks.

Violet smiles and her chest puffs out in pride.

"_**Master."**_

* * *

Violet's moved back into her old bedroom and Bob, Helen, and Jack-Jack offer to do anything she wants to change the place. The room has been a living shrine to his sister. Which was both weird and cool because while it was an attempt to keep her sister's memory alive, it gave him a chance to get to know her. Sometimes he was younger, he'd wait for his mom to become busy and then he'd walk through the locked door to investigate. He'd touch her teenage makeup, let his fingers brush against the material of her clothes in the closet, breath in the fading scent of her soap on her pillow case. Now he was fifteen and he has her in the flesh, a strange shadow of what she should have been.

They help her clean everything out: books, clothes, bed, carpet. As her youngest brother, Jack-Jack takes it upon himself to act as the coordinator of the project and she delights in it.

"What colour do I want the walls to be?" she coos as they look at the paint swatches in Ace Hardware.

"Spearmint," he decides and she quickly agrees.

"Where shall I place my bed?"

"Against the west wall, so you can look out the window when you wake up."

"Oh, so smart!" she exclaims, holding his hands tightly.

She's better than a pet, better than a girlfriend.

She's gotten her driver's license and with her hard work at the NSA as an assistant to Dad, she's bought a used car. In the afternoon she drives to the high school to pick him up; he always greets her with a kiss on the cheek and the compliment, "Wow, your driving has gotten so much better, Violet!"

This always sends her into the fit of giggles and a red face as she protests. None of his friends know that she's his sister and he can't tell them because then he'd have to explain the relationship they have and he knows no one will ever understand it. She's just "that chick who picks you up after school."

She always drives him to the mall, where he offers her his arm to support her and he lets her look at the clothes in the windows. They go the food court, where she takes the worn dollar bills out of her wallet and buys them both pizza slices and drinks. He's grown used to her shaking hands holding her lemonade and the adoring smile she gives him as she listens to him talk about his day.

He knows he's replaced someone in her life and he knows it's his obligation to make sure he fills that role perfectly.

Saturday morning is spent watching cartoons with her. He sits in front of her legs as she hums and brushes his hair.

"You have such beautiful hair. Almost red," she always says, her voice dreamy.

"I'll dye it red, if you'd like," he offers and he literally sees her swoon.

Mom and Dad sometimes talk to him while she naps; Mom always hugs him, thanking him for being so good to his sister and Dad always claps him on the back, saying how proud his is.

'_It's much easier than you'd think,'_ Jack-Jack always replies in his head.

Dash comes home on the weekends to visit and he tells Jack-Jack confidentially that he's jealous of the friendship between Vi and him, that he misses what he used to have with their sister. Jack-Jack is glad that Violet chose him.

Everyone calls him "Jack," and sometimes "Jackson," because he's no longer a little kid, but secretly he likes that his sister calls him his baby name. Only she calls him that and really, she's the only one he'd want to say it in the first place.

Her 28th birthday arrives a month before his 16th and he's planned the perfect party for her. Balloons, cake, streamers, and confetti for a cold November afternoon are perfect and he's spent an incredible amount of time trying to decide on a present. Nothing's right or good enough and finally he asks one of the girl's at his school, Amy, what he should get for a girl he likes. Amy tells him something from the heart.

On her birthday itself, Mom and Dad are called out on a fire downtown, leaving them alone in the house. Their parents are apologetic, but Jack-Jack is okay with that. The overcast day hovers over siblings, but Jack-Jack pushes it out of his mind as he sets up dinner for his Violet.

She enjoys the roasted chicken, the sweet potato and the sugar peas. She wants to help him clean the dishes, because that's her nature, but he convinces her to stay in her seat as he gets her birthday cake out of the fridge in garage. She doesn't get lit candles because the fire makes her freak out, but that's not a big deal because that leaves no melted wax behind. He's cut her piece of cake and he carefully feeds her, bite by bite.

Her large, luminous eyes look at nothing but him, the sweet smile on her lips accented by a smudge of icing. His thumb carefully rubs it away and she closes her eyes, leaning into his touch.

"Would you like to open your present?" he asks, his hand still against her face.

"Uh huh," she replies, her eyes still closed.

He hands her the gift he's been saving for her and watches hopefully as her shaking hands peel the paper and ribbon away.

"Ooh, it's perfect," she murmurs as she looks at the picture in the frame.

It's the photo they took together during the summer, the one of her in her bikini and he in his swim trunks when they went to the beach. His arm is around her waist and her cheek is against his, an excited smile on her face. He has a smaller version of it hidden in his desk drawer, something that he looks at far too often.

"I thought you could put it in your room?" he says as she looks it over.

"Yes. Yes, right on my nightstand. You'll be the first thing I see when I wake up," she says, that innocent smile curling on her lips.

"That's right," he agrees.

He's her caretaker, her brother, her hero. And he couldn't want anything more.

* * *

**A/N: **Miss Bodhi and I were discussing the second story in this little quartet of drabbles; I wanted it to get darker and overwhelmingly aweful and a bit of brainstorming came up with this. She can be so deliciously twisted and with a bit of prodding and making one another sick, we decided to go down this route.

The original ideas for a dark Synlet fic came from the minds of me and the ever lovely xShocked.


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